Use Command Line to Power off a Virtual Machine – VMWare

Using the ESXi 5.x esxcli command to power off a virtual machine

The esxcli command can be used locally or remotely to power off a virtual machine running on ESXi 5.x. For more information, see the esxcli vm Commands section of the vSphere Command-Line Interface Reference.

Open a console session where the esxcli tool is available, either in the ESXi Shell, the vSphere Management Assistant (vMA), or the location where the vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI) is installed.

Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:esxcli vm process list

Power off one of the virtual machines from the list using this command:esxcli vm process kill --type=[soft,hard,force] --world-id=WorldNumber
Notes: Three power-off methods are available. Soft is the most graceful, hard performs an immediate shutdown, and force should be used as a last resort. Alternate power off command syntax is: esxcli vm process kill -t [soft,hard,force] -w WorldNumber

Repeat Step 2 and validate that the virtual machine is no longer running.

For ESXi 4.1:

Get a list of running virtual machines, identified by World ID, UUID, Display Name, and path to the .vmx configuration file, using this command:
esxcli vms vm list

Power off one of the virtual machines from the list using this command:esxcli vms vm kill --type=[soft,hard,force] --world-id=WorldNumber

Using the ESXi command-line utility vim-cmd to power off the virtual machine